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Happiness is hot water!
Moving the hot water heater from the living room to the utility room was fairly easy, but there was no way I was going to be able to lift the heater onto the low platform that I'd built. That was just as well, because I was still bugged by the gas company man's red tag that said I had to raise the unit 18" off the floor for code compliance reasons.
The idea behind raising the heater is to prevent flammable and explosive vapors from coming into contact with the pilot flame. Should such vapors be be present, they stand a good chance of being ignited if the pilot flame is near the floor, and the aftermath is quite unpleasant, involving fire trucks, ambulances, and often, coroners.
Such vapors are common in garages, but not common in utility rooms, so some codes don't require indoor heaters to be raised. I'd built an 8" stand for the unit, as a kind of halfway measure, but then as I went to look for something - I forget what it was - I opened the bottom door to the pantry cupboard and found...a can of paint thinner. My nose found it before my eyes did, and at that point, I decided that maybe 8" was not enough. And since there's still an open building permit on this house - and a gas company red tag is, after all is said and done, a red tag - I decided this morning to go out and do what was necessary to install the unit in such a way as to make the gas company proud of me, and maybe save my butt should I ever be stupid enough to store paint thinner or similar substance in the pantry again.
It turns out that with a stand under it, there is just enough room above the unit for the 10" clearance that is strongly recommended by the manufacturer. I also bought the appropriate PVC and CPVC piping and accessories to extend the cold and hot water piping 18".
Lee came over to help because the heater is heavy...or at least it was before I drained a bunch of water from it. It never occurred to me that the heater had water in it because there was no sloshing sound as I moved it. As it turned out, there was maybe 5 or 6 gallons inside.
The work went rather quickly, with the hairiest part, actually, being the stovepipe that I shoved up through the ceiling. That's going to require some patching up on the roof, but while Lee was up on the roof nailing down a temporary patch, I did the honors for the washer and the dryer.
Ooohh. Hot water never felt so good.
Yippee!
Time to get ready for work, though. Gotta run.
Cheers...
The idea behind raising the heater is to prevent flammable and explosive vapors from coming into contact with the pilot flame. Should such vapors be be present, they stand a good chance of being ignited if the pilot flame is near the floor, and the aftermath is quite unpleasant, involving fire trucks, ambulances, and often, coroners.
Such vapors are common in garages, but not common in utility rooms, so some codes don't require indoor heaters to be raised. I'd built an 8" stand for the unit, as a kind of halfway measure, but then as I went to look for something - I forget what it was - I opened the bottom door to the pantry cupboard and found...a can of paint thinner. My nose found it before my eyes did, and at that point, I decided that maybe 8" was not enough. And since there's still an open building permit on this house - and a gas company red tag is, after all is said and done, a red tag - I decided this morning to go out and do what was necessary to install the unit in such a way as to make the gas company proud of me, and maybe save my butt should I ever be stupid enough to store paint thinner or similar substance in the pantry again.
It turns out that with a stand under it, there is just enough room above the unit for the 10" clearance that is strongly recommended by the manufacturer. I also bought the appropriate PVC and CPVC piping and accessories to extend the cold and hot water piping 18".
Lee came over to help because the heater is heavy...or at least it was before I drained a bunch of water from it. It never occurred to me that the heater had water in it because there was no sloshing sound as I moved it. As it turned out, there was maybe 5 or 6 gallons inside.
The work went rather quickly, with the hairiest part, actually, being the stovepipe that I shoved up through the ceiling. That's going to require some patching up on the roof, but while Lee was up on the roof nailing down a temporary patch, I did the honors for the washer and the dryer.
Ooohh. Hot water never felt so good.
Yippee!
Time to get ready for work, though. Gotta run.
Cheers...
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